Ocean Springs officials: There is no deficit, no layoffs

OCEAN SPRINGS, Mississippi -- Ocean Springs city officials said Friday there is no budget deficit, there have not been nor will there be any employee layoffs, and the decision to close the municipal jail was unrelated to balancing the budget.

The reaction from officials came less than 24 hours after a report by local television station WLOX which erroneously claimed Ocean Springs was "facing a budget deficit."

"The whole budget deficit thing -- I know some in the media like to stir up drama, especially with the current situation in Pascagoula," said alderman Mike Impey, "but to say Ocean Springs is facing a deficit is totally false."

Impey, fellow aldermen Rob Blackman and Bobby Cox and Mayor Shea Dobson all told The Mississippi Press that reductions in expenditures are common place during budget talks each year -- and this year was no different.

"Let me break it down," Blackman said. "This year, we ended up with a surplus of about $220,000. After we began working on the new budget, we looked at all the department's wish lists and requests and saw that to meet all of those requests would put us about $500,000 in the red.

"So we did our typical reductions and now we're projecting a surplus by the end of fiscal 2019."

A copy of the proposed budget, which is expected to be approved next week after Friday's state-mandated public hearing, projects Ocean Springs to end FY19 with a surplus of just under $100,000.

In addition, the City currently maintains a reserve fund of more than $900,000, Cox noted.

"We're not in a crisis situation," said Impey, who said he was quoted out of context in the WLOX report. "Layoffs were never part of the equation. That's something they (WLOX) tried to steer me into saying -- that the jailers were layoffs. They were not. I really resent the way that was presented in that article."

The Mississippi Press first reported Thursday that Ocean Springs had reached an agreement under which the municipal jail would be closed and city prisoners housed at the Jackson County Adult Detention Center.

The WLOX report suggested three Ocean Springs jailers would be out of jobs. While the positions were eliminated, all three have been guaranteed spots working at the ADC if they want them -- a point confirmed by Jackson County Sheriff Mike Ezell Friday.

"We have some openings at the ADC and we plan on hiring these guys," Ezell said. "The way it works here is there's a procedure for starting out in the jail and then transitioning to deputy sheriff. So we continually have guys who transfer from the jail to the road, so that creates openings at the ADC. So right now we have openings for them."

In addition, the ADC jobs pay more than did working in the municipal jail and carry the same state retirement benefits.

Blackman and Impey said, and Ezell confirmed, discussions about closing the Ocean Springs jail began long before the budget process began.

"The jail closure had absolutely nothing to do with the budget," Blackman said. "That was a decision made weeks ago and was in talks months ago. We wanted to get out of the jail business. It made sense. This was voted on before even knew of any potential problems with the budget.

"The way WLOX spun this as a cut of personnel because of budget constraints is just not true."

Impey agreed.

"The whole thing about the jail -- to try and tie the two together is extremely disingenuous," he said. "They're trying to make out the three jailers as layoffs and that is absolutely not the case. It was something Chief (Mark) Dunston and others have worked on for a while, because it just didn't make economic sense to continue to be the only city still running our own jail."

Dobson and Cox both said the process of trimming the budget was part of the normal process each year. Blackman noted the city ad valorem (property tax) millage rate of 25.83, set to be adopted after Friday night's budget hearing, is unchanged from the current millage and, while the new budget will not include employee raises, there were across the board raises last year.

"Basically, it was making adjustments to the budget based on revenue projections," Cox said. "With all the requests from departments, we had to go in and make decisions about what we wanted to do this coming year and what could be put off."

"We had to pull back on some projects we wanted to do," Dobson said. We're doing that, frankly, because we're having to purchase new software, public works had equipment that was falling apart -- what we're doing is investing back in the City so we can be more efficient, which will later allow us to do more of the projects we want to do.

"Certainly, it would be nice to be able to give our departments everything they ask for, but the reality is we have to spend within our means, which is what we're doing."

Cox also noted that if the City were truly in a deficit situation, they would tap into the reserve fund, although he said the board has worked hard to build the reserve, not use it.

"The story that came out last night was a very negative spin on the whole thing," Cox said. "But I guess you can put a negative spin on anything if you try hard enough."